BUZZARDS BAY — Leo Finn, the Buzzards Bay father caught up in the shutdown of the federal government, will get his chance to try a potentially lifesaving cancer drug sooner rather than later.

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., was able to intervene and get the National Institutes of Health to move ahead with the clinical trial of the cancer drug at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The NIH will bring back several employees furloughed as a result of the government shutdown and classify them as essential employees to get approval for the Dana-Farber trial, as well as several other trials across the country that were on hold, Keating said.

"Incredible, just incredible," Finn, 48, said after his doctor called to tell him the clinical trial was back on. "I was exhilarated. I couldn't wait to tell my wife. ... She couldn't believe it."

Finn said it helped restore his faith in government. "Not only are they helping me, but they're helping other people whose trials were put on hold," he said.

His treatment is scheduled to begin Wednesday.

Dr. Edward J. Benz, president of Dana-Farber, issued a statement praising the efforts of NIH and Keating's office.

"We are extremely pleased to have been able to tell patients today that we can now move forward and enroll them on newly activated clinical trials," Benz said. "The inability to register new trials was a very unusual circumstance, and we went to great lengths to overcome issues generated by the recent government shutdown."

In the past 24 hours, Finn's story has captured the attention of people on social media outraged that the political scrum in Washington, D.C., was putting his health in jeopardy.

Finn had been scheduled for pre-testing Wednesday at Dana-Farber to prepare to try the drug cabozantinib, which has proved effective in shrinking tumors in separate clinical trials. The drug is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for thyroid cancer but not yet endorsed as a treatment for liver cancer.

Finn, 48, agreed to the trial after his doctor told him that chemotherapy was no longer effective in shrinking the largest of his tumors. Finn has bile duct cancer, a form of liver cancer that is rare, especially for men under 70. In recent tests, Finn's doctors told him that several other tumors were growing.

The test drug could be Finn's best shot at getting healthy. "As I've said before, I want to see my kids graduate and I want to walk my daughter down the aisle," Finn said Wednesday.

Keating, who also lives in the town of Bourne, worked with his staff through the night Wednesday and into Thursday to find a way to help Finn.

"They found out that there are many people who were affected by this change. There are people around the country — in other trials — that were caught in this same situation," Keating said. "There are other problems with the shutdown, but for Leo and many others, this is going to be good news."

Keating was taken with Finn's story and how the community rallied around him.